


Perspective

by lferion



Category: Anne McCaffrey - Dragonriders of Pern
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Introspection, Yuletide, Yuletide 2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Red Star shines through Eye Rock - two points of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kastaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/gifts).



> Many, many, many thanks to A Person to be Named Later for excellent advice, assistance and lightning beta-skills.
> 
> Thanks also to Kastaka, who provided a very cool prompt.

He was the last. The last dragonrider, the last weyrleader — of a nigh empty weyr, an almost empty sky, a nearly empty land. Oh, there were still people, and dragons, and people who were companions to dragons, dragons who were companions to people. There were even fire lizards, flitting and diving and brightening the skies with jewel-colors. There were deep forests and wide plains, green and gold and rich with harvest, seas that teemed with fish and other wondrous life. There were whole _planets_ full of people.

They had reclaimed the stars, flying outward from the third planet that circled Rukbat in stately, timeless dance, spread throughout the wide area of space the Ancients had named the Sagittarius Sector, flown high and wide and far. They settled on other, more beneficent worlds, and crafters, holders, harpers turned their hands to new skills, learned to ward from new dangers, write songs and teaching ballads for new skies.

Pern was not abandoned. There were people yet here: caretakers, curators, researchers, some few crafters and farmers to support the academic outposts, keep the historic places — Ruatha, Fort, Benden, Southern — green-free or verdant as the needs of the researchers, the vagaries of politics dictated. No thread fell. No thread had fallen for a half a Pass of Passes, several thousand years. Thread would never fall again, even though the Red Star winked in the dawn through the Eye Rock, burned there now, as S'len stood on the high and windy platform, bronze Talanth at his back.

_Gone away, gone ahead,   
Echoes roll unansweréd  
Empty, open, dusty, dead  
Why have all the Weyrfolk fled?_

S'len knew why the weyrs were empty, knew where the folk and beasts and dragons had gone. He could, if he wished, turn on the far-speaker, talk to Soren on New Telgar, read on 'Distant Drums,' the Harper Hall digest, of news from a double-dozen planets, and commentary thereon. They were as much a part of the fabric of the wider universe as they chose to be.

_Into the future they fly  
The youngest, that never knew Thread;  
They dream as they seek out new skies  
Free, for they felt not the dread  
Of grey and burning rain falling from on high_

And S'len was not alone. (Talanth, of course was always in his mind, a great warm Presence, in the closer-than-lovers relationship that was Impression. It had been a shock and a scandal and a nine-times-ninety day wonder when it happened. Dragons didn't Impress any more; they chose companions, or not, spoke with humans or not, had lives of their own, braided with but not dependent upon humankind. S'len was not merely an anachronism, he was an archaism.) Kyren should be back today, flying with gold Kirith, queen of all Pern. (As Ramoth had been ages long ago, Nemorth before her — S'len knew all the lineage of Benden's queens.) And Kyren, Kirith's chosen companion, the one with whom she conversed, was a young man, not a maid. That had been an uproar of its own, but was more rare than utterly unheard of. Dragons didn't care about the gender of their companions as much once they had (or people thought they had; and perhaps it was a difference between companionship and actual Impression. S'len did not know, and the dragons did not say.)

Weyrfolk were not meant to be solitary. Even without Thread or the possibility of Thread, the baleful glitter of the Red Star through Eye Rock was deeply unsettling.

_The finger points  
To an Eye blood-red  
Alert the weyrs  
To sear the Thread_

S'len shook his head. His mind was full of the old Teaching Songs this morning. He looked forward to having Kyren at his side — and in their bed — again.

_I shall be pleased to have Kirith and Kyren back as well. He makes you laugh. You do not laugh enough._ Talanth's voice rumbled in his head. Warm metal-scented breath whooshed down his neck, ruffling his hair. _Can we do another flight with firestone soon? It has been a very long time since the last one. And the people with the draperies were so very impressed."_

S'len laughed and thumped Talanth with great affection. "I'll see if there are any visting delegations coming up. Or perhaps we can get one of the researchers to request a demonstration of one of the finer points of Thread-fighting drill." There might not be Thread to fight, but going through the dance that was the drill would take care of the shiver of unease that still tingled in his bones. He was a throwback and he knew it. Let them put on a show, a remembrance. It was a date of note, of history.

There was a glimmer of gold in the distance, the bright sense that was Kirith coming in, happy and excited. They'd seen wild fire lizards, and **such** a flock of wherries! Hundreds and hundreds of them, in all kinds of colors. She'd only eaten two, and none of the blue-feathered ones that Kyren said were rare. Could she do firestone drills too? It sounded like it would be fun.

The sun had risen high, all the morning stars subsumed in the warm light of day.

Suddenly it didn't matter if he was the last of an order, the last of a line. There would be eggs, and dragonets, and dragons grown for many ages yet, and humans too, until the stars themselves grew dim. It was enough.

* * *

Selen, son of Soren, son of Salek woke in the cold, grey dawn, his brothers and cousins crowded around him, still sound asleep. Riuchar of Benden Hold had warned there would be Search soon, the first for the new Weyr, the second Weyr, needed now that people were creeping further across the land, carving holds and building cautious, deep-walled halls. Salek, beholden to Lord Maath of Bitra but bordering on Benden had been a pioneer. Esse-hold might be small, but they had prospered, and hoped to prosper more.

Selen eased himself from under the furs, the tangle of his younger brother's sleepy limbs. The stones were chill on his bare feet, but something drew him, called him onward, out to the main hall to see the great doors opened to the day. The distant sky was shading toward morning, lightening with slow fire. Above the distant peak of Benden Weyr gleamed a wandering star, a spark of balefire, not yet quenched by dawn. He shivered. There was a whisper in his mind, goldbronzebrowngreenblue.

_You will know dragons, child, and dragons will know you, until that star has no more power to destroy. The first of your line._

*** Fin ***


End file.
